A photograph of a young Pomo woman taken between 1896 and 1924. The Pomo are a Native American group from Northern California. (Image by Edward S. Curtis from the George Eastman House Collection. Image is in the public domain.)
Instructor(s)
Prof. Karen V. Hansen
(Brandeis University)
Prof. Marilynn Johnson
(Boston College)
Prof. Lois Rudnick
(UMass Boston)
MIT Course Number
WGS.640
As Taught In
Fall 2014
Level
Graduate
Course Description
Course Features
Course Description
This course explores how gender shaped the historical experiences and cultural productions in the North American West during the time it was being explored, settled, and imagined. The North American West of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries provides a fascinating case study of the shifting meanings of gender, race, citizenship, and power in border societies. As the site of migration, settlement, and displacement, it spawned contests over land, labor disputes, inter-ethnic conflicts and peaceful relations, and many kinds of cultural productions.
The Graduate Consortium in Women's Studies (GCWS)
This course is part of the Graduate Consortium in Women's Studies. The GCWS at MIT brings together scholars and teachers at nine degree-granting institutions in the Boston area who are devoted to graduate teaching and research in Women's Studies and to advancing interdisciplinary Women's Studies scholarship. Learn more about the GCWS.